Rocky start for Columbus paving plans

Tuesday night's city council meeting over road work was on rocky terrain.

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Tuesday night’s city council meeting over road work was on rocky terrain.

Columbus Mayor Keith Gaskins broke a deadlock between city council members on how six point nine million dollars in tax money should be used to cover issues like road paving, drainage, and bridge maintenance.

Councilman Pierre Beard of Ward 4 proposed about three-quarters of a million dollars should be used to pave three heavily traveled roads first: Lemburg Road, Military Road, and Gardner Boulevard. The remaining would be split among all 6 wards. Beard’s proposal won the Mayor’s tie-breaking vote.

Columbus City Councilman for Ward 5, Stephen Jones, says the new paving plans for the city will leave some residents from his district out in the dirt.

“Who am I gonna tell that they’re not gonna get paved because they took my hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to put it elsewhere?” said Jones. “You’re taking care of more traveled roads. They say five thousand or more. But I actually have a road on 7th Street that they say is thirty-eight hundred. But the cost for me to pave that road is the same cost if not more than it is to pave Lemburg or Gardner Boulevard so the numbers they’re using do not make sense to my constituents in my ward.”

Councilman Jones says splitting the nearly seven million dollars evenly among all six wards allows each council member to address issues that are most important to their district. He says paving roads in Wards 3, 4, and 6 first, and splitting what remains isn’t fair to residents in the other districts.

“By them not splitting it, I have 125,000 less that I’m getting to pave roads in Ward 5,” Jones said. “If other councilmen you know are not looking at it strategically then my constituents should not be punished because of that.”

The council still has to place bids on which roads will be paved in each ward before paving can start in 2024.

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